...yes, as of yesterday. I am now the proud owner of FIVE vehicles, and all of them with over 100,000 miles. I figure that they'll look real purty sitting up on blocks around the yard. Just like at certain of my relatives who shall remain nameless...
Seriously, my good friend Robert Esch went car hunting with us yesterday and sacrificed a whole day to help two rather helpless car shoppers. He agreed: I have the word "sucker" emblazoned on my forehead. They start salivating when I walk through the door. He doesn't have such problems, though, thanks be to God. And he helped us pick up a car that, God willing, will get Bekah through high school when she starts driving next month (thank you, Lord! Come on March 21st!!!!).
So, now the Weedon car collection consists of:
1991 Ford Taurus
1995 Buick Century
1995 Ford Windstar
1998 Ford Escort
2001 Fod Windstar
But the good news? They are all ours - no car payments. Which means that we get to save up money to have them repaired every other month or so, remembering what FORD is an acronym for.
Motorized vehicles. I HATE them. Was life really so bad with a horse or a bike?
Well at least yours is a multi car household with more than one driver in it! I can't say the same. My boys are too young to drive yet (9 and 10), I have a one car garage with driveway to match, and have three vehicles! Two with over 100k and paid for, the third I just "bought", ie put some down and borrowed the rest to buy. Which I did because of the factor you mentioned -- you save up your payment money for those new transmissions etc for the cars you don't pay on!
ReplyDeleteOh, Past Elder, what joy you have waiting for you when one of them begins to take the car on his own. Sweet!!!!
ReplyDeleteBut of course, it's not like you spend the time at home relaxing - at least not if you're like me. You end up fretting and spend it praying, and always with an ear out for the crunch of tires on the driveway, when at last you breathe a sigh of relief and ask forgiveness for your fear and doubting.
I know the acronym for Fiat is Fix it again, Tony.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the one for Ford,,,,, we have an older Ford,,,, with a brand new clutch as of last week.
Fix or Repair Daily.
ReplyDeleteFound on Roadside Dead.
I think I had Round One of that when skateboards and bicycles entered the scene! I've got a few years to go for the cars.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the stable is:
1986 Pontiac Fiero SE
1992 Plymouth Voyager LE
2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser Limited Edition
The Fiero is a relic from single days. I guess I can't quite part with it knowing I'll never have a two seater with the engine in the back again. The Voyager is wonderful. If I could get a new one just like it rather than the current ones I wouldn't even look at anything else. But its on it's second tranny now which isn't quite what the original was. I keep it around like some guys keep an old pickup. The PT is altogether something else -- part sports car, part van, part sedan, the boys love it and so do I.
My 10 year old announced he had dibs on the Fiero about age 7. When I was about 5, my dad and my uncle who worked for Chevrolet took me in one of the then new Corvettes for a spin, and I've wanted a two seater ever since. So when everyone thought buying a Fiero at age 38 was a mid-life crisis thing, I said if that's so I've been in mid life crisis since age 5!
Rats, got the its mixed up -- I really do know that it's is a contraction for it is, and its is the possessive of it.
ReplyDeleteConsole yourself, Past Elder, that after all spelling is a very late convention in English and that at the time of the publication of the KJV - well, you made up the rules as you went along. I actually like that better. Suits the spirit of the language more! If Shakespeare wants to spell his name three or four different ways, who are we to object?
ReplyDeleteIt ain't my fault!
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote my dissertation a quarter century ago, you had Strunk in one hand and the University of Chicago Manual of Style in the other, and in my case and adviser right next to you reading the draft, who thought my English writing style read more like a word for word translation of something originally written in German!
What did you write on? Er, rather, upon what did you write?
ReplyDeleteBoethius.
ReplyDeleteIt was a doctoral dissertation in music theory. The thesis defended was, musica as in the "three musics" is always taught in terms of the science of his time, and not understood for the classification system for knowledge that it is in the classic Seven Liberal Arts.
So I laid out the whole deal, multitudes and magnitudes and all, and proceeded to show that musica still functions as a knowledge system and is not invalidated when the knowledge advances -- as when there are no spheres to be making music. Musica mundana would then be physics etc, musica humana biochemistry etc, and musica intrumentalis what we generally mean by music but best analysed by Heinrich Schenker who understood the out-composing of tone as the basis of true music as opposed to organised noise.
It was something to do, I don't do anything connected with that sort of thing now, and probably would have better spent the time at Fort Wayne except I wasn't Lutheran then!
And to answer a question you didn't ask, my take on Luther at the time was, he was a good man trying to do a good thing, but unfortunately with all the Occamist professors being tolerated in his day he never was taught real theology (the moderate realism of Aquinas) or worse, how to make a good confession, so he went beyond legitimate concerns about moral abuses into doctrinal error, which only goes to show somebody better stomp on Kueng hard before it happens again!
ReplyDeleteYou don't get from there to being elected to serve as a Lutheran elder unless there really is the grace of God! On the other hand, if I had gone to sem I could have grown up to be just like General Scuttlebutt!
Sure, Past Elder, when you wrote:
ReplyDeletehe went beyond legitimate concerns about moral abuses into doctrinal error,
You were not saying that Luther's reformation should have stuck with "moral reforms"?
No doubt I'm reading you incorrectly.
I was saying Luther's reformation should have stuck with moral reforms, and would have avoided doctrinal error had he had a proper seminary training rather than all the Occamism/nominalism, plus never having learned to make a "good confession".
ReplyDeleteI was saying that as a summary of my view of Luther when I was an RC. I was not saying that as a summary of my view of Luther or the Reformation now.
And I was saying that one cannot go from where I was to where I am unless what we call the grace of God is for real.